Home-made laser rifle laughs at your puny pointer

German laser weapons hobbyist Patrick Priebe, the creator of such one-off curiosities as the Iron Man Gauntlet and the Crysis 2-inspired Gauss Rifle, has now gone and made a laser rifle. While it won't bring down a storm trooper or an alien facehugger, it'll make short work of things like wood, Styrofoam and glass.

The mostly aluminum-bodied 12-lb (5.4-kg) rifle incorporates a 7-watt infrared burning laser, along with a 2-milliwatt red aiming laser. Power comes from an 18-volt rechargeable battery pack converted to run at 12,000 volts, while a 12-volt pump circulates one liter of distilled water to help keep things cool. An LCD screen indicates when the temperature of that water is getting too high (28ºC/82ºF), at which point the gun has to stop shooting things for a while.

Priebe tells us that the rifle seems to work best at a distance of about four meters (13 ft) from its target. It took him about 250 hours to build and as usual, no, he won't sell you one ... which is a good thing.

An experienced freelance writer, videographer and television producer, Ben's interest in all forms of innovation is particularly fanatical when it comes to human-powered transportation, film-making gear, environmentally-friendly technologies and anything that's designed to go underwater. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta, where he spends a lot of time going over the handlebars of his mountain bike, hanging out in off-leash parks, and wishing the Pacific Ocean wasn't so far away.

Why the need to 12kVolts? Wouldn't 3vdc LED's work far better for the energy source?

jerryd

Why is there always someone making misleading comments, with no actual knowledge of what they write.

This laser is not illegal to own in the USA nor are most any other lasers illegal to own in the USA. It is illegal to do harm with them or point them at automobiles, aircraft or police officers but other than that anyone can own one. Most wood shops have lasers that can cut quickly through wood & many machine shops have laser metal cutters and printers that can heat metal quickly to bonding temperatures. You can even buy pretty powerful lasers for cutting from the back off magazines PS.

Matt Fletcher

The annoying noise it makes it feel cheap too. Much stronger than a pointer, but will quickly feel like it lacks power...

Would make a great novelty cigarette lighter from twelve foot distances for parties and such.

jerryd: It's a CO2 laser, so you need high voltage to fire the tube. It's a large arc lamp, like a neon sign. They take VERY high voltages. This one happens to have water cooling, like every other C02 laser out there.